


The Road Not Taken

by Liron_aria



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Duelist Kingdom, For Want of a Nail, Gen, Implied Antagoshipping, Seto Kaiba is the rightful Wielder of the Millennium Rod and Obelisk’s Chosen Duelist, Survivor Guilt, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27511126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liron_aria/pseuds/Liron_aria
Summary: Yami calls Seto’s bluff atop Pegasus’ Tower at Duelist Kingdom, and the worldchanges.
Relationships: Kaiba Mokuba & Kaiba Seto, Mutou Yuugi & Yami Yuugi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	The Road Not Taken

**Author's Note:**

> Seto Kaiba is the lynchpin of the YGO universe and you can Fight Me On That. Without him, there _is_ no story.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own any Yu-Gi-Oh! intellectual property. Kazuki Takahashi does.

The reverberations hit Seto like a punch and he’s cursing himself even as his foot slips and he pitches backwards. So much for relying on Yugi’s _goodness;_ he’d shown his true colours.

Seto swipes at the parapet, trying to grab on, and -

he misses, and -

Oh god

_Mokuba_

He falls for an eternity and all he can see is his little brother reaching out, terrified and betrayed and he falls and he falls and he falls -

_‘Kaiba!'_

And the last thing he knows is bone-shattering pain.

_The fate of a loser is to die!_

Yugi-tachi scramble to the ledge, but they’d been standing on Yugi’s side, so by the time they get there, all they see is a body sprawled on the rocks, a dark pool of blood surrounding him.

Oh, God.

In Egypt, at the same moment, the Millennium Rod flares its power, wild and blinding, before it dies down, now a cold and empty trinket. The Millennium Necklace pulses and Ishizu Ishtar gasps, horrified, because the future has suddenly shifted irrevocably. Obelisk sneers at her from his card, because who will wield him now?

And Yugi? Yugi’s locked within himself, frozen in stunned horror at what he - the Spirit inside him - has done. Yami’s the one who walks down to the rocks with the others, and even _he’s_ numb, because he never expected _this_ , knows that their duel shouldn’t have ended this way.

But Seto Kaiba lies dead before him, and his grandfather is still in Pegasus’ clutches. Such are the stakes of the game.

‘I guess he got what he wanted,’ Tristan finds himself saying, and immediately looks so horrified and disgusted with himself that even Téa can’t bring herself to reprimand him. All she _can_ think is that no game is worth this.

She doesn’t look at Yami. She can’t.

Joey picks up Seto’s star chips grimly. He’s seen death before, with Hirutani, and no matter how much he doesn’t want to think about it, he knows that people like Yugi and Téa can’t be around this. So he reminds them that Gramps is waiting and drags them away.

He silences the voice inside him that cries out in warning that Yugi’s not Yugi, with the sharp set of his eyes and the hard lines of grim determination on his face. Instead, he wonders at the look in Bakura’s eyes, clouded and calculating and just a little bit grieving.

Yami fights Pegasus. Yugi comes out of his stupor long enough for them to win.

‘Just this once, for Grandpa. But I’ll _never_ work with a murderer like you!'

_Murderer_ , Yami wonders, _Is that what he is?_

Destiny, Fate, the Heart of the Cards, _someone_ , is on their side, and they eke out a win. Grandpa’s soul is released. No one knew - or, more accurately, it never occurred to them - that Mokuba’s captive, too, because there was no reason for Pegasus to trot him out like a show pony. Mokuba wakes up in a prison cell, and wonders what happened to his brother.

Crockett shows him the answer.

Mokuba wakes up screaming for his brother every night for the rest of his life.

_Will his hands ever be clean of Nii-sama’s blood?_ He doesn’t think so.

Yugi smashes the Puzzle and tosses the pieces into the sea. The Nameless Pharaoh sleeps, returning to the darkness without even knowing he’s a Pharaoh at all. Yugi never so much as looks at a Duel Monsters card again.

Téa doesn’t come over anymore. She doesn’t look at Yugi, either, because she can’t stop seeing the Other Yugi in his face. Joey and Tristan stay, but there is something so irrevocably broken between them, the elephant in the room that never goes away.

Mokuba evicts the Big 5 and pulls KaibaCorp away from Duel Monsters, instead focusing on designing and building Kaiba Land. KC never becomes the groundbreaking juggernaut it was projected to be, instead levelling off to the pace of their R&D department. Still strong, but not revolutionary.

There are no more Duel Disks and no Battle City. The Blue Eyes White Dragons never soar in defiance of the Gods, because soon there are none at all.

Marik Ishtar dies in the face of two special forces teams courtesy of a sniper bullet to the head. An unimpressed commando shreds the cards that had caused so much trouble and tosses them into the mud. The Millennium Rod lies elsewhere on the battlefield, dented and tarnished, useless since its true master passed.

Ishizu weeps because she knew this was coming, the inexorable hand of destiny warning her through the Millennium Necklace. She has no idea that there should be a man with the power to defy the Millennium Necklace and shatter destiny.

And why should she - Seto Kaiba died long before she had the chance to duel him.

In Atlantis, Dartz grits his teeth at the loss of five unimaginably powerful offerings to the Great Leviathan and pushes his timeline back. It’ll take a lot more normal souls to make up for the loss, but he can wait. He’s waited thousands of years; he can wait a few more.

Alister turns the object of his revenge to the remaining Kaiba heir: a boy who doesn’t duel, who has no Legendary Dragon to play -

Because the Dragons never rose at all, no Chosen Duelists to wield them.

The Seal of Orichalcos feasts, and the last stones of the Kaiba empire crumble.

The world turns, cold and cruel until it doesn’t, never knowing what a brighter place it could have been.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
